NCCR - A Comparison of the Provisions Affecting Investment in the Existing WTO Obligations

Suggested citation
Gugler Philippe, Tomsik Vladimir, "A Comparison of the Provisions Affecting Investment in the Existing WTO Obligations", NCCR Trade Regulation Working Paper No.15/2006.

Abstract
The paper explores the provisions affecting investment in the existing WTO obligations as well as in most European bilateral investment treaties, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and finally in the APEC Non-Binding Investment Principles. The authors mainly focus on the investment provisions embraced in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs). Nevertheless, three further WTO agreements – the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) with their indirect effects on investment are also explored.
It could be argued that investment provisions are already embraced in several international agreements and further negotiations on investment do not represent a major progress. However, the analysis provided by this paper shows this argument is impossible to sustain in light of the limited investment provisions tackled in the explored international agreements. Indeed, the investment provisions in the compared agreements do not fully address the numerous investment issues as for example legal security, policy coherence, and the transparency of government commitments.

Key Words
Investment, WTO, NAFTA, APEC Non-Binding Investment Principles, GATS, TRIMs, TRIPs, GPA, ASCM

JEL Classification
K33, F20, R10

Download Working Paper No. 15/2006